Our Top Team

David TaylorManaging Director,
Writer and Executive Producer

Veteran programme-maker with more than 40 years in TV - 20 years with the UK’s leading network, ITV, producing prime-time popular science, and over 20 years as head of York Films. Won an Emmy for creative writing 3 Minutes to Impact. Works as writer and executive producer for all York Films productions.
email david@yorkfilms.com

Dr John MasonScience Editor and Producer

Broadcaster, author, book editor and resident lecturer at the South Downs Planetarium, England. A former academic at Imperial College, London, his grasp of all things astronomic has ensured the veracity and clarity of Spacefiles, Stargazing, Nobel’s Greatest Hits, The Complete Cosmos, Eclipse and If We Had No Moon.
email docjohn@dircon.co.uk

Joe SmithChief Animator

Lead graphics animator for Spacefiles, Stargazing, Nobel’s Greatest Hits, If We Had No Moon, Eclipse: Herald of the Millennium, The Complete Cosmos and 3 Minutes to Impact. Designed DVD of The Complete Cosmos. After eight years in London, recently moved to Seattle, USA, where he continues to work for York Films.
email joe@yorkfilms.com

Raili TaylorGeneral Manager

The company lynchpin, in charge of day-to-day administration and finance. For ten years in her native Finland, managed all types of production from studio drama to live OBs. Moving to the UK, she was a radio journalist with BBC World Service prior to joining York Films where she operates a tight ship.
email office@yorkfilms.com

STARGAZING - A Graphic Guide to the Heavens
An animated atlas of the night skies - 6 x 30’

From anywhere on Earth, a year-round guide to the constellations and stars. The heavens are viewed from three latitude bands - from the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, from the tropics, and from the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere.
Release 2002

NOBEL’S GREATEST HITS
13 x 10’
The first hundred years of the Nobel Prize

A dozen of the most remarkable stories to emerge during the first 100 years of the Nobel Prize. The greatest scientific advances in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine - plus the story of Alfred Nobel himself and the august institution he bequeathed the world.
Release: 2001

THE COMPLETE COSMOS 2 x DVD-9
The World’s First All-Zone DVD Guide to Space and Astronomy

DVD version of York’s 1998 TV series - playable anywhere in the world with narrations and subtitles in American English, British English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Japanese - plus a music-only track. Twenty-five 10-minute chapters - 13 on Disk 1, 12 on Disk 2, 250 linear minutes.
Release: 2000

IF WE HAD NO MOON 1 x 52’
What Spawned our Partner in Space?

Without the Moon, we wouldn’t exist.
Life, if it had started at all, would be in the earliest stages of evolution. What luck that from a primeval cosmic catastrophe our Moon was born – a double collision when our proto-planet was hit by a body the size of Mars.
Release: 1999

ECLIPSE: Herald of the Millennium
1 x 52’
The Great Solar Eclipse of 1999

A retrospective on Europe’s 1999 total eclipse of the Sun - the anticipation, the disappointment, the fun, the awe. As it swept across the heart of our continent, the eclipse of August 11, 1999, was the last of the 20th century - a celestial herald of our third millennium. Release: 1999

THE COMPLETE COSMOS
25 x 10’
A Television Encyclopedia of the Universe

York’s best-selling space and astronomy series, predecessor of Spacefiles and replacement of Encyclopedia Galactica. Twenty-five shorts cover the Solar System, our Milky Way galaxy, and the depths of the Universe. Each self-contained episode is rich in facts, graphics and meticulous writing.
Release: 1998

3 MINUTES TO IMPACT
2 x 52’
The Threat of Asteroids and Comets

Two-part prime-time special. A gripping analysis of the threat to Planet Earth of the asteroids and comets that hurtle through the inner Solar System. Awarded Emmy in 1998 for Individual Achievement in Writing. A highly commercial TV blockbuster.
Release: 1997

SOLAR EMPIRE
6 x 52’
Exploration of the Sun, the Planets and Their Moons
Commissioned by The Learning Channel (USA).
Release: 1997

WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE
13 x 25’
Mysteries of the Cosmos
Commissioned by The Learning Channel (USA).
Release: 1995

THE MAN WHO COLOURS STARS
1 x 52’
A Biography of David Malin, Space Photographer

For years David Malin was the world’s top astronomy photographer. His pictures unveiled our galaxy, the Milky Way - and the infinity of galaxies beyond - in the glory of full natural colour. The documentary won Italy’s Prix Leonardo.
Release: 1995

CHRISTMAS STAR
1 x 50’
A scientific explanation of the Star of Bethlehem

The mystery of the Star of Bethlehem.
Was it a comet, a supernova, a conjunction of the planets? What guided the Three Wise, the Magi, to the birthplace of Christ? A scientific explanation. Release: 1993

This precursor of The Complete Cosmos was conceived entirely for the overseas market. Strong on visuals and free of talking heads, in its day, Galactica was the most comprehensive introduction to space and astronomy.
Release: 1993

BICYCLE
6 x 20’
Everything About the Bicycle

Global tour de force - history, business, sport, technology, the eco-friendliness of the last mechanical invention that everyone understood. A York Films’ best-seller.
Release 1991

THE MONK AND THE HONEYBEE
3 x 30’
Biography of the Greatest Bee-breeder

The charming story of Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey, England, who spent 70 years perfecting one of the most commercial honeybee strains in the world. Release 1987